PS Malik speaks on: Fear of Death or Fear of Life

Fear of Death or Fear of Life

People take birth. They grow. And then they die. They celebrate their birth but they mourn their death. They are receptive of their new births and scared of their coming deaths. They treat these two poles of life differently.

When they are confronted with their death they want to do something different what they were not doing before that. When they bring others to death (by judicial hangings etc.) they want to know their last wish. When someone is brought to death they are shocked.

After birth a human being weaves a web of relations around him. He becomes a son or a daughter. Then he starts acquiring his identifications – his gender, his name, his qualification and so many other things. He starts identifying himself against this background of relations and identifications. This places him in a state of convenience. Being a boy or a girl allows him / her to some prerogatives which are not available to the other sex. His being a Christian or a Buddhist places him in some other privileged state where other religions do not sooth. His education and other attributes also allow him to have some privileges and conveniences. He starts identifying himself amongst these privileges and identities.

A professor many a time is antagonized with his new transferred postings despite the same service benefits. He finds himself more convenient in the earlier situation. At the end of life when one is habitual of wives, children, status and money – the idea to leave this all and that too at once frightens him. He wants to have all while the death is allowing him nothing.

So when one is confronted with the idea of one’s imminent and inescapable death he is in a fix. He wants to do something to avoid it, something to flee from it but he cannot. His this helplessness appears on the outermost layer of his existence. He wants to release that energy. So many a times whenever you are aware of your imminent death you want to do something.